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United Airlines CEO says the airline will consider alternatives to Boeing
81–90 of 231 posts
Re: United Airlines CEO says the airline will consider alternatives to Boeing
#82Boeing should of just created a new plane with all the required development/testing instead of trying to take the MAX shortcut.
Re: United Airlines CEO says the airline will consider alternatives to Boeing
#83Boeing should move the its HQ back to Washington state. They need to show the public that things are going to change and it starts with the executive team being next to the engineers. Microsoft had the same problem when Balmer was in charge, focus around sales and not engineering.
> Boeing should move the its HQ back to Washington state...Microsoft had the same problem when Balmer was in charge, focus around sales and not engineering.
While Balmer was CEO the HQ was in Washington state :-)
More seriously, Balmer is an excellent example, because I believe the Boeing case is more mendacious, yet more banal.
Balmer seemed to have the right idea, yet utterly the wrong intuition. It's especially strange in that he was there pretty much from the very beginning, and influenced the growth of the business, yet fatally he never learned what the business actually was.
When Balmer took over MS, the business rested on several pillars:
1 - A captive client base based on CIOs and IT departments
2 - A dedicated and committed employee base
3 - A huge army of outside developers who benefited when MS succeeded, so helped the latter happen.
4 - A consumer business ultimately driven by the size of #1
2 - Picayune things like replacing free snacks with vending machines told the staff that he didn't give a shit about them, rather thought of them simply like a resource.
You can see from the "developers developers developers" video that he really did value #3, and much as I dislike him as a businessman I loved him for that. But eventually it became clear he understood its importance to the business but didn't understand why.
4 - this pillar flailed due to neglect under him, including Xbox, Skype etc.
He grew up with the car business, but grew up when the industry was in the shitter, surviving on momentum, and got his MBA in the intellectually (in regards to business) terrible 1970s. He appears to have learned nothing from his long time at MS before becoming CEO and ran the business like a shitty 1970s car company.
Note that the US car industry only got its act together after 1 - getting their clock cleaned and 2 - going back having gearheads as CEOs.
The Boeing case is similar, but worse. I never believed that Ballmer was subject to lazy or misaligned incentives; he was simply wrongheaded. I do thing the MCDD guys who took over Boeing were incentivised by their comp plans to optimize for the wrong things, all in the short term. The same thing destroyed HP.
Re: United Airlines CEO says the airline will consider alternatives to Boeing
#84"Kirby wasn’t specific about what planes the airline could acquire instead of the Max 10, but he noted that there is only one other global manufacturer of such large planes — Boeing’s European rival Airbus." Is it just me or is every player in the dramatis personae dancing around this and/or burying the lede? If they were ordering regional jets, sure, you could buy Embraer or Bombardier, I guess. But as it stands it'…
What if SpaceX built a medium-haul narrow body to compete with 737 and A320?
Re: United Airlines CEO says the airline will consider alternatives to Boeing
#85Actions have consequences. Boeing decided they wanted to focus on maximizing profits rather than allowing organic growth to follow on continued high quality engineering and services. In regulated industries, especially where safety is of utmost importance, this is exceptionally risky. They F'd around and found out, and imho the only solution is leadership and strategy changes to shrink their business and refocus on b…
They didn‘t maximize profits at all. Why do people operate on the principle „if it is bad it had to be because of maximizing profits“? This seems to be much more about corruption and misaligned incentives as well as bigcorp bullshit-job rot. There is really only one thing that can cure this and that is more fierce competition
I would argue that relocating their HQ away from their engineering hub was done to "maximize" profits by colocating close to lawmakers & lobbyists. This goes hand in hand with corruption in what is a semi-nationalized industry worldwide. Just like American air carriers being uncompetitive on international routes, Boeing risked becoming uncompetitive against Airbus, which is still ~25% owned by France, Germany & Spain.
Re: United Airlines CEO says the airline will consider alternatives to Boeing
#86Other than Airbus, are there any alternatives?
Chinese COMAC seems to be on the verge of selling meaningful numbers to chinese airlines. Wont be surprised if they are a very viable competitor in ~20 years which isn’t much in the aviation world where backlogs span a decade
> Chinese COMAC seems to be on the verge of selling meaningful numbers to chinese airlines.
That's easy when the PRC is mandating it, but given the hard earned safety record of say... Airbus, people are not in a rush to stake their lives and businesses on Chinese built aircraft. They're not exactly known for the transparency and integrity. In 20 years COMAC is likely to suffer multiple deadly crashes.
Re: United Airlines CEO says the airline will consider alternatives to Boeing
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not for planes the size of a 737.
Why don‘t they scale up? They seem to have all the regulatory capabilities to get a commercial jet on the market already. I also never understood why e.g. China doesnm‘t just buy Embraer (or take over all their employees) and builds out from a functioning product?
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Re: United Airlines CEO says the airline will consider alternatives to Boeing
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
So what are your thoughts on people who won't take the vaccine because they don't trust pharma companies and the FDA? Also, what are your thoughts on the EASA and why they haven't banned the Max? I find it hilarious how many people who mock people who "don't trust the experts" and "do their own research" suddenly engage in the same thing when it comes to other domains. Make no mistake: anti-Maxxers are kinfolk to ant…
Yes these are clearly identical situations with no difference at all! /s
You're right, in one situation you have people rejecting a product with years of research vetted by regulators around the world because they don't like the business practices and politics of the organizations behind it. On the other, you have... the same exact thing.
Whoops. They are the same.
Re: United Airlines CEO says the airline will consider alternatives to Boeing
#89At this point, it’s quite pertinent how many corners Boeing has cut over and over again—the company’s culture and management is obviously poisonous. I’m probably a minority of folks, but at this point I’m flying on airlines with the fewest Boeing Max generation planes in their fleet. I also don’t really trust the FAA to properly regulate Boeing after years of a close relationship—the recent groundings are the bare mi…
So what are your thoughts on people who won't take the vaccine because they don't trust pharma companies and the FDA? Also, what are your thoughts on the EASA and why they haven't banned the Max? I find it hilarious how many people who mock people who "don't trust the experts" and "do their own research" suddenly engage in the same thing when it comes to other domains. Make no mistake: anti-Maxxers are kinfolk to ant…
Medicine isn't science, it's a discipline. Flying is science. There is no "this will fly in my opinion". As ridiculous as saying I trust one organization so all are fine.
Re: United Airlines CEO says the airline will consider alternatives to Boeing
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
So what are your thoughts on people who won't take the vaccine because they don't trust pharma companies and the FDA? Also, what are your thoughts on the EASA and why they haven't banned the Max? I find it hilarious how many people who mock people who "don't trust the experts" and "do their own research" suddenly engage in the same thing when it comes to other domains. Make no mistake: anti-Maxxers are kinfolk to ant…
That is absolutely not the same thing. If I don't fly on a plane, the worst thing that happens is the company doesn't get my money. If I don't take a vaccine the worst thing that could happen becomes a potential loss of vital senses or even death(s). Your ending statement could hardly be further from the truth. There's no evidence that these groups of people are related.
> If I don't fly on a plane, the worst thing that happens is the company doesn't get my money.
There are people that state they'd rather drive than fly on a Max.
The worst that can happen is a statistically much higher likelihood of dying. On the other hand, if you don't take the vaccine, the worst that happens is Pfizer doesn't get your money.